Ear Prints Replacing Fingerprints?
October 10, 2010 03:25 PM EDT (Updated: October 10, 2010 04:01 PM EDT)
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Scientists have discovered that each person has a very unique set of ears—so distinctive in fact, that ear scans could provide a viable alternative to fingerprints and other biometric technologies currently used to verify individual identity.
Most of the world currently uses fingerprints as a primary means to confirm identity, since each person’s finger-skin whirls are highly individualized and easily identifiable. But there are a few limitations with this approach. Most notably, people who perform intense manual labor, such as bakers or construction workers, often wear off their whirls over time.
Retinal scans, which are used by government agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and NASA, provide another means to verify personal identity. The limitation of this system, however, is that effective measurements can only be obtained when the person looks directly into the camera. This, of course, is not feasible in some real-life situations.
Aging could also be a factor with some biometric identification algorithms. For example, facial drooping or wrinkles often skew facial recognition software into making erroneous predictions.
Ears, however, don’t age so drastically over time, say researchers, who have closely examined 252 sets of ears to validate their discovery.
"Your ears … age very gracefully. They grow proportionally larger and your lobe gets a bit more elongated, but otherwise your ears are fully formed from birth," noted Professor Mark Nixon, who led the study at the University of Southampton in England, according to the Telegraph.
Ears are also relatively easy to photograph—except when they are covered by long hair—which makes them ideal candidates for biometric identification at places such as airport security screenings. Simply positioning cameras on the left and right sides of the screening gates would allow security officials to obtain ear images that could be used for confirmation of the person’s identity.
Could ear prints replace fingerprints in biometric identification? While there are no immediate plans to change technology at this time, ear scanning may prove to be a very useful biometric technique in the future.
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